1. Field Of The Invention
The invention relates to personal safety devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system to enable one or more supervisory individuals to monitor the location of one or more monitored individuals.
2. Background And Objects Of The Invention
Personal safety devices are well known in the art and provided in many forms. However, there is a need for simple, capable systems, and associated devices, to enable a supervisory individual, such as a parent, to quickly locate a monitored individual, such as a child, as required.
For example, assume a parent and child are in a park, and the parent is distracted for a moment. During this time the child moves off to play on another item in the park, say a slide provided a short distance away. Next, the child moves to yet another play item. Thus, in a possibly relatively short period of time the child and parent may be separated by a somewhat significant distance. It may even be possible that the child is now out of the line-of-sight of the parent. Upon realizing the child has moved (possibly out of sight), the parent may panic and actually head off in the wrong direction, thereby increasing the distance to the now unsupervised child. Therefore, even if the child is actually nearby, a disaster may result.
When considering the current technology available, especially with regard to the level of miniaturization that is possible with electronic circuits and modules constructed with such circuits, devices and systems are providable that can address this and other `monitoring` concerns. Further, such systems should be readily providable at reasonable costs and embodied in rugged and reliable constructions.
Objects of the present invention are, therefore, to provide new and improved monitoring systems having one or more of the following capabilities, features, advantages, and/or characteristics:
a reliable and low maintenance system using available technology; PA1 a modular wireless based architecture; PA1 provides a first electronic module associated with a monitored individual and a second electronic module associated with a supervisory individual; PA1 provides distance and direction related information to the supervisory individual (regarding the monitored individual) PA1 supports the annunciation of distance related alarm situations; PA1 supports the annunciation of other types of alarm situations; PA1 simple and economical construction; PA1 very simple to use.
The above listed objects, advantages, and associated novel features of the present invention, as well as others, will become more clear from the description and figures provided herein. Attention is called to the fact, however, that the drawings are illustrative only. Variations are contemplated as being part of the invention, limited only by the scope of the appended claims.